Intro

Worlds colliding

A Journal News/lohud special investigation originally published Sept. 9 2012.

One week after East Ramapo became the only school district in the region to see its budget defeated by voters, school board Vice President Daniel Schwartz warned at a meeting that the district faced a "terrible, terrible crisis."

The crisis he referred to was not the impending dismissal of another 90 jobs, including all social workers and most teaching assistants. It was not the reduction of kindergarten from full day to half-day or the shriveling of art, music and sports programs, or the possibility that a second defeated budget would eviscerate the school system like a carpet bombing.

The crisis that Schwartz bemoaned in May was a creeping anti-Semitism spurred by distrust of the school board, which since 2005 has been run by majorities of Hasidic and other Orthodox Jews who send their children to private schools.

Schwartz, tall and heavily built with a confident posture, bristled at the common notion that the school board cares more about saving money and restraining taxes than the education of public-school students. He linked this argument to ancient anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish obsession with money that "paved the way to Auschwitz."

"I won't have it. I simply won't have it," he said. "To suggest that we lack the moral authority to sit in these seats, let me tell you right now, is absolutely un-American and wrong."

As he spoke, eight people in the audience, vocal opponents of the Board of Education's management of the district, stood and turned their backs to Schwartz and his colleagues. It was an act of seething disrespect, with any pretension of common ground peeled away, that showed the depth of the divide between two communities that happen to fall within the boundaries of the same public-school system.

But Schwartz, a lawyer who since has been elected board president, thundered on about his right as a resident — and Orthodox Jew — to hold his seat: "You don't like it? Find yourself another place to live!"

New York's public education system was not designed for a place like central Rockland County. East Ramapo's 14 public schools serve about 9,000 students — almost all from families of working-class or poor African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitian immigrants. Also residing within the district are close to 20,000 students who attend private schools, primarily more than 100 yeshivas and Jewish day schools. Many large Hasidic families in New Square and Monsey are borderline poor themselves but pay tuition for their children and property taxes to support a public-school system that seems worlds away.

The strained relationship between the public schools and the larger Orthodox community has birthed a series of conflicts and suspicions and has left the district on the brink of financial insolvency. Many Orthodox Jews don't understand why their taxes keep rising, while those on the other side accuse their own school board of slowly choking the public schools that are supposed to be their children's path to the American dream.

“This is about public distrust. We are not a Catholic school system or a Jewish school system. These are public schools, and the board is trampling on our rights to an appropriate education.”

Danyel Semple, East Ramapo graduate

"This is not about anti-Semitism," said Danyel Semple, a 2011 graduate of the district who now attends Georgetown University, after Schwartz's lecture. "This is about public distrust. We are not a Catholic school system or a Jewish school system. These are public schools, and the board is trampling on our rights to an appropriate education."

The tensions building within East Ramapo boiled over during the summer. A public interest law firm representing some 200 parents filed a federal class-action lawsuit against school board members and administrators past and present, contending they violated students' constitutional rights by diverting millions of dollars to private schools. In addition, 14 of the board's most zealous critics filed a possibly game-changing petition with state Education Commissioner John King, asking him to remove five board members, all Orthodox, for a "pattern of impropriety" and to appoint a state monitor for the district.

East Ramapo began this school year with a $1.78 million deficit, no financial reserves and something approaching open revolt.

CLOSE

A special Journal News/lohud investigation

'Strangling of resources'

Conflicting world views

The state constitution requires a system of "free common schools" but leaves it up to school districts — meaning school boards and taxpayers — to define an appropriate and affordable education. In East Ramapo, interviews with dozens of people from all walks of life showed that the district's two communities often see things in fundamentally different ways.

The board's many critics see a school system spiraling downward and pitied by its neighbors. They cite a demoralized staff that's been cut by 25 percent over four years, low test scores, shrinking extracurriculars, depleted financial reserves and a series of government investigations that support their fears.

"With the strangling of resources, we can no longer give an education to these children," said Steve White, a 1979 district graduate and one of the board's toughest critics.

But to members of the Orthodox community who attended schools without extracurricular programs or Advanced Placement classes, the East Ramapo schools have an abundance of educational options and are too free spending.

"Most of the people in this area do not even use the public schools," said Elizabeth Nagel, 23, a lifelong Monsey resident. "They go to private schools, where we don't have any pools, any drama. We don't have fancy computers or sports teams. Many people don't really understand why the taxes keep going up. To pay for what?"

Nagel spoke just after she and her father voted against East Ramapo's second budget proposal June 19. Neither of them, like other Orthodox voters interviewed that day outside Ramapo High School, had any idea that under the state's new tax-cap law, a second defeated budget would have required unprecedented budget cuts and the likely elimination of kindergarten.

But the budget passed 3,605 to 1,218, thanks to a small turnout. Orthodox leaders had not pushed their communities to vote against the budget because of recent salary concessions from the teachers union.

The district's first budget plan had been defeated in May, 7,894 to 5,828, which Orthodox leaders had attributed to dissatisfaction with union wages. Also that day, three Orthodox men were elected to the school board, increasing the Orthodox/Hasidic majority from 6-3 to 7-2.

After the budget passed, many Orthodox residents didn't understand why the first vote did not stand.

Kindergartners follow along during a learning exercise on May 8 at East Ramapo Early Childhood Center in Spring Valley.(Photo: File photo by Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

"We want the kids to be served, but taxes are so high," said Chaim Lobl, 27, of Monsey. "Why did people vote 'yes'?" I don't understand. Eight thousand people said the first time that it's too much for us. Make more cuts."

Even as the two sides claim their interests are under attack, East Ramapo is being squeezed by economic factors that are beyond anyone's control. The recession has leveled property values everywhere, resulting in endless requests for tax givebacks. State and federal aid has declined across the board. Many key costs, such as pension and benefit contributions and salary increases set before the recession, have continued to rise.

Critics of the East Ramapo board's management, when asked, often can't say where they would get the money to save programs and staff.

Peter Obe, a 16-year district resident who is an organizer of a proposed charter school in East Ramapo, said the "civil war" between the board and its critics is only a distraction from the district's financial collapse. The district doesn't have the tax base to support the salaries and benefits of its staff, he said, and will struggle until senior teachers retire.

"Do I think the board has its own agenda? Yes, because people take care of their own first," Obe said. "But show me how they are the root cause of the problem. It's simple mathematics. Costs keep going up, and we can't afford them. No one knows what to do except blame the other side."

There is a palpable sense across the district that public and private schools are fighting for the same dwindling dollars. Orthodox Jews often focus on services that public districts must provide to private schools under state law, particularly special education and transportation.

"It is a competition for resources," Schwartz conceded.

But board Vice President Yehuda Weissmandl, a Hasidic Jew from Spring Valley, disagreed: "No one has said to me, 'What can you take away from the public schools to give to us?' "

By most accounts, East Ramapo was a classic suburban system into the 1970s. Then empty-nesters started moving south. More apartments were opened in the Village of Spring Valley. African-American families started moving in, then Haitian immigrants. White families moved out.

People from different cultures shop together at the Spring Valley Farmers Market at Memorial Park in July.

(Photo: File photo by Peter Carr/The Journal News)

Looking back

A very different district

During the early 1980s, East Ramapo had about 17,000 public-school students. A fraction attended private schools. Then Hasidic Jews started arriving in large numbers from overcrowded Brooklyn. New Square, a village incorporated by the Skver Hasidic sect in 1961, began to grow exponentially. The hamlet of Monsey, which had one yeshiva during the 1950s, became an internationally known destination for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Monsey, only 2.2 square miles, is now home to nearly 20,000 people.

Outsiders are baffled by the diversity of the region's Orthodox Jews. There are the Hasidim, insular sects loyal to chief rabbis that trace their origins to pre-Holocaust Eastern European towns. Other fervently Orthodox Jews, often called "ultra-Orthodox," may not be loyal to a rabbinic dynasty but appear the same to many — bearded men in black and white with dangling side curls, women in long sleeves and skirts. "Modern Orthodox" Jews are a distinct community, adhering to traditional Jewish law but interacting with secular culture.

Many Orthodox Jews in East Ramapo feel they don't get respect from the public-school community, which in many cases refuses to acknowledge the school board's authority.

"People bash our community and mock the board and the administrators," said Mendel Rosner, a member of the large Satmar Hasidic sect. "Some people will not recognize anything good that the board does. We see that."

Today, New Square and Monsey are crammed with multifamily housing, and there are children everywhere. Spring Valley, shared by all, is largely poor, marked by small clapboard houses, apartments in disrepair and storefront churches. The villages of Wesley Hills, Pomona and New Hempstead, formed to keep out the dense housing of the Hasidim, have maintained their suburban appearance and are home to many modern Orthodox Jews.

What stands out to all is that the Orthodox communities are far more organized than East Ramapo's disconnected minority groups and are capable of producing enough voters to maintain control of the school board and to defeat budgets when desired.

"You have to be careful what you say because it can be taken the wrong way," said Serge Colin, a Haitian-American and district resident for more than 20 years. "The problem is complex. You see, the Jewish people do a wonderful job. They are organized. The rest of us are not organized. We need to develop leadership, or there will be problems in the future."

East Ramapo's sad budgetary picture is due, in part, to its uniqueness.

For one thing, the state's aid formulas consider the district wealthy because of property values, costing East Ramapo millions in state aid. For another, the state's formulas count only the district's 9,000 students, even though the district is required by law to provide expensive services to almost 20,000 more students in private schools.

"This is so far outside the expectation of any other school district," Superintendent Joel Klein said.

With state and federal aid plunging, East Ramapo has faced a year-to-year budget crisis. In June, the school board had to shift money among accounts in order to pay its bills. The board wiped out its reserves to close the books but still enters this school year with a $1.78 million deficit.

The $191.9 million budget for this school year includes more than $7 million in cuts, including full-day kindergarten, numerous elective classes and about 90 jobs, including that of beloved marching band director Michael Smith. About 400 positions have been eliminated over the past five years.

Beverly Watson of Airmont confronts school board members during a March 28 meeting on proposed school budget cuts at the East Ramapo Central School District central administration building in Spring Valley.(Photo: File photo by Peter Carr/The Journal News)

Over the past three years, East Ramapo has been hit by a flurry of accusatory government investigations that have only deepened the antagonism between factions.

The school board and its supporters insist that these reviews are the work of fewer than 10 critics who know how to play the system. Skeptics cite these government findings as proof that the board is serving its own community.

A 2011 audit by the state Comptroller's Office found that the board failed to track $2.4 million worth of textbooks loaned to private schools, that a $4.5 million fund balance was unexplained and that three Orthodox board members did not reimburse the district for health insurance.

The audit found that the board and administrators failed to "set a good example" for employees and at times "betray the trust the public has placed in them."

A 2010 study by the state Education Department found that East Ramapo was placing special-education students in private schools rather than public schools, as required by law. In June, the state reported that East Ramapo is still going rogue and has lost state reimbursement for 63 placements over two years.

Then in 2011, the state, in separate actions, blocked East Ramapo from selling two public-school buildings to private schools. Critics called the attempted sales sweetheart deals for the two yeshivas based on fraudulent appraisals and minimal marketing of the buildings.

In one decision, the state education commissioner said the board "abused its discretion by hastily approving the sale" and did not secure the best possible price. Earlier this year, the state Attorney General's Office requested thousands of documents related to the deals.

In regard to one attempted school sale, former board President Morris Kohn said the criticism was legitimate. "The state said we didn't do our due diligence, which I could understand."

Orthodox board members say these outside judgments are due to misunderstandings of East Ramapo's unique situation or have been addressed. The bigger problem, they say, is that a small group of opponents keeps demanding investigations.

"They have an agenda of animosity with a trickle of hate," Weissmandl said. "After sitting on this board for over a year, I don't believe I've been given a chance yet."

Board members and administrators, though, tend to overlook the common, widespread criticisms of district management from all corners. When a team of journalists from The Journal News were preparing to interview Klein and his Cabinet in July, several employees walking by pleaded in whispers, "Tell the truth, tell the truth."

Wendy Reissman, a teacher in the Early Childhood Center, said what many teachers say privately that having an outside group control the district creates an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

"We know they are in total control — and I'm Jewish," she said. "I told the board at a meeting, 'Everyone hates you.' They separate themselves but run the schools."

The East Ramapo school board during the reorganization meeting of the board at district headquarters in Chestnut Ridge July 10, 2012.

(Photo: Peter Carr/The Journal News)

A board of mystery

Candidates are unknown to school community

New Hasidic or Orthodox members of the school board generally arrive as strangers to the public-school community. Most don't campaign outside Orthodox neighborhoods or provide biographical information to parent groups or the secular media. When they take their seats in the board room, they tend to say little.

"They may be shy," said Kalman Weber, a well-known, Orthodox anti-tax activist from Monsey. "They may never have spoken on the record before."

How these board members are chosen — and who influences them — have been subjects of intense speculation, even obsession, for many in the district.

Kohn, the former board president, said that Orthodox board candidates are approved and influenced by the region's top rabbis, who used to appoint liaisons to individual board members. During his term, Kohn said, the rabbis discussed how many seats they should seek on the board and whether they should allow a public-school board president "as a gesture." He said the rabbinic leaders, described as a "board of rabbis," sometimes decide how the community should vote on budgets, sometimes not.

"The (school) board listens to or adheres to the advice of the board of rabbis," Kohn said. "When it comes to larger issues, the school board seeks their advice and opinions."

Kohn and Weissmandl said they resisted pressure from community activists to run for the board before relenting.

Predictably, there is great disagreement in East Ramapo over whether Orthodox board members are in position to run a public-school system they know little about.

Bryan Burrell, executive director of the Rockland County School Boards Association, was very critical of the East Ramapo board's focus on minimizing spending each year without concern for long-range planning.

"What's happened time and time again is that the board, in order to have the smallest possible tax increase, tries to sell assets, deplete resources and cut non-mandated programs," he said. "Their only focus is on how to cut spending today."

Stephen Price, the school board's senior member and one of two non-Orthodox members left, said the attempted sales of two school buildings brought to mind the board's shortsighted decision in 2007 to sell an unused 20-acre property for $6.5 million.

"They didn't use the money to do anything, only to hold down taxes for a year or two," he said. "If you sell assets to run programs, you can string it out for one or two years, but then you're done."

Suzanne Young-Mercer, the other non-Orthodox member, said the Orthodox majority often seems to have its decisions made before the board meets.

"You don't have a give-and-take conversation on anything," she said. "They have to win on all their points. They don't really care what I think."

To many Orthodox members of the community, the board is accomplishing its primary goals: to reduce spending and taxes and represent the needs of private schools.

“We have to live together, but there can't be denial. This is the new reality.”

Isaac Gold, of Monsey

"We are the majority here," said Isaac Gold, 28, of Monsey, a father of three who works in accounting. "We pay taxes, don't get our fair share and hear anti-Semitic comments. When we got on the board, our board members cut back, and tax increases became lower. We have to live together, but there can't be denial. This is the new reality."

Critics of the board majority say the Orthodox members make little effort to relate to the community or to explain their beliefs or decisions. When the board stopped a meeting in June to honor newly tenured teachers and student leaders, the Orthodox members mostly stayed to themselves.

"If we had a better understanding of how things work, maybe we would feel differently," said Delilah Greenfield, PTA secretary at Grandview School. "But if we ask questions or bring anything up, the other side says we are being divisive. This attitude creates further divisions, pitting us against them."

A divisive issue

District cited for improper special-education placements

By Gary Stern

The single most divisive issue in East Ramapo — and the primary reason that the Orthodox community first sought a majority on the school board in 2005 — is special education.

State law requires public-school districts to provide certain services to private schools, the most important and expensive of which are transportation and special education. When it comes to special education, districts have to review the needs of all students and provide the best possible services in the most appropriate setting.

In East Ramapo, though, choosing the appropriate setting is a serious point of contention.

Federal and state law require that special-education students are served in the "least restrictive" environment, meaning as close as possible to mainstream students in public-school classrooms. But many Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox families in East Ramapo would prefer that their special-needs children be educated with other children and teachers from their communities, so that everyone speaks Yiddish, eats kosher, and shares the same values and points of reference.

Dozens of families want their children placed in private schools at public expense. Such placements, which the East Ramapo school board tries to deliver, sometimes run counter to what the law requires.

"This district may be the square peg in a round hole," board President Daniel Schwartz said.

In 2010, the state Education Department slapped East Ramapo for placing special-education students in private schools when appropriate public-school placements were available. The state said in June that East Ramapo was still not compliant and had lost out on state reimbursements for 63 cases over the past two years.

The financially strapped district lost at least $325,000 in reimbursements, the Education Department said.

Education Department spokesman Jonathan Burman said East Ramapo has engaged in a pattern of improperly placing students in private schools without documenting the decision-making process.

"While concerns of the parent for the education of his or her child must be considered, a district's placement cannot be based on religious reasons or social desires for a placement, and it must ensure the placement is in the least restrictive environment as that term is defined in federal law," he said.

The district's conundrum was nearly resolved in June when the state Legislature passed a last-minute bill, promoted by Orthodox groups, that would have forced school districts to consider a special-education student's "home environment and family background" when deciding on a placement. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed the bill July 31 after an outcry from the public-school community over its potential costs.

For now, the East Ramapo Board of Education tries to get around state requirements by reaching settlements with parents who want their children placed in private schools. The board contends these settlements are legal matters, which school boards are empowered to handle, and are cheaper than resisting a family's request and facing an expensive appeals process.

Board of Education members Moshe Hopstein, left, and Yehuda Weissmandl of the East Ramapo Central School District during a meeting on proposed budget cuts at the district's central administration building in Spring Valley March 28, 2012.(Photo: File photo by Peter Carr/The Journal News)

Yehuda Weissmandl, vice president of the school board and a Hasidic Jew from Spring Valley, said these placements are necessary because the public-school system is not giving Orthodox parents an alternative.

"No one wants to sit down and make it happen," he said. "You have to think outside the box — create our own program so parents can feel comfortable sending their children here."

The board has tried creating a special program in the public schools. Two years ago, the district started a kindergarten special-education program for Orthodox students, but few parents were willing to try it, former board President Morris Kohn said.

"We tried to explain to parents that it was a lower-cost placement with high-level services," he said.

In 2011, the district killed plans to absorb a special-education school run by a yeshiva after federal investigators began an audit of the district.

Weissmandl said Hasidic families live in a "very sheltered environment" and need to be able to bring their disabled children "back to our homes." Allowing a special-education student with limited abilities to mix with public-school students, he said, could prove disorienting for the child.

"That child will pick up certain behaviors," he said. "If he learns about celebrities and sports stars — and has very limited capacity — and finally makes a friend and talks about sports stars or actresses, the friend will say, 'What do you mean?' "

Schwartz and Weissmandl said they are trying to design an internal program that the state could accept.

As of July, 50 students were placed in private special-education schools and 40 were placed in public schools within Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic village run by the Satmar sect in Orange County. Tuition and services at these schools regularly exceed $50,000 a year.

Orthodox students are also among the 235 East Ramapo students placed in Board of Cooperative Educational Services special-education programs.

And nearly 500 Orthodox students with less severe disabilities attend mainstream private schools but receive various services and therapies from the public-school district.

Stephen Price, one of two non-Orthodox East Ramapo board members, said he did not expect the board to change its placement strategy.

"What do they care if the (state education) commissioner tells them to fix it?" he said. "They feel they have political clout. No one can tell them otherwise. They want to educate their children as they see fit."

To its critics, East Ramapo's focus on special education for private-school students shows that the board's priorities are skewed.

Parent Peggy Hatton, one of the board's most aggressive naysayers, cited the elimination of 32 "collaborative classes" at the middle and high schools that mixed special-education students with mainstream and advanced students.

"They're cutting programs for public-school students and increasing spending for private-school placements," she said. "But you can't make placements based on social mores. That's where the separation of church and state comes in."

Buy Photo

Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, center, president of Padres Unidos, and Kim Foskew of New City, former PTA council president, voice their concerns as parents, during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012. The area behind them at the tree-line is an area where non-students walk to and from during school hours.(Photo: The Journal News)

Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, right, president of Padres Unidos, voices his concerns as a parent during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012. Rivera's son Aaron, 12, center, a sixth grader at Kakiat Elementary School, told his father about trespassers at his school.(Photo: The Journal News)

Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, center right, president of Padres Unidos, speaks as Kim Foskew of New City, former PTA council president, and Willie Chapman, far left, Spring Valley NAACP president, stand by him during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012.(Photo: The Journal News)

Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, right, president of Padres Unidos, voices his concerns as a parent during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012. Rivera's son Aaron, 12, behind him at center, a sixth grader at Kakiat Elementary School, told his father about trespassers at his school.(Photo: The Journal News)

Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, left, president of Padres Unidos, speaks as Kim Foskew of New City, former PTA council president, and Willie Chapman, far left, Spring Valley NAACP president, stand by him during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012.(Photo: The Journal News)

Parent Peggy Hatton of Chestnut Ridge, center, speaks passionately as Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, president of Padres Unidos, voices support during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012.(Photo: The Journal News)

Willie Chapman, center, Spring Valley NAACP president, speaks as Kim Foskew of New City, former PTA council president, and Hiram Rivera of Hillcrest, president of Padres Unidos, stand by him during a press conference held by other parents and the PTA at Ramapo High School to voice their concerns over people trespassing on school grounds at district schools May 4, 2012.(Photo: The Journal News)

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Strangers near schools

Parents battle with board for 'no-tresspass' signs

Nearly 20 sexual predators live within two miles of East Ramapo's public schools, 13 of them by Elmwood Elementary School, where Rebecca Montesa's daughter is a student.

Montesa can't understand why her daughter's school, or any school in East Ramapo for that matter, doesn't have "No Trespassing" signs posted, a standard security measure in schools nationwide.

"There were five (offenders) within a one-mile radius," said Montesa, who is the East Ramapo PTA council president. "I just want the kids to be safe."

Yet the push to keep strangers off school grounds during school hours has turned into a war between the PTA and school officials in a district whose large Hasidic population walks many places. Compounding that everyday habit is the insular religious community's reputation for not reporting sexual predators among its members.

The district's policymakers say they are concerned about security, of course, but don't see strangers walking across school property during school hours as a problem. They said the no-trespassing edict could be perceived as anti-Semitic. Montesa said she was told that many of the walkers are mothers with children or other youngsters who live nearby and pose no threat.

"Except for some people making a big issue of it, it isn't an issue," Superintendent Joel Klein said. "If you have a sex offender looking to do harm, a 'No Trespassing' sign will not stop him."

Added Elie Wizman, assistant superintendent for special services and funded programs, school personnel "were told they could approach individuals on the grounds and tell them to leave. If they don't leave, (the principals) could call the police."

Montesa isn't convinced.

A man walks on school property to reach a trail July 13 as Rebecca Montesa, right, talks about how unsafe this is for the children behind Elmwood Elementary in Spring Valley. Parents want the school board to put up no-trespassing signs to keep people from cutting across school property during school hours.(Photo: File photo by Carucha L. Meuse/ The Journal News)

"You just can't say it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal until it becomes a big deal," she said. "What is so hard about getting the signs up?"

Ramapo police said they're willing to respond to a school if someone thinks trespassers are on the grounds, but all they can do is chase people off. Unless the district is willing to prosecute, they said, their hands are tied. State trespassing law, though containing a special provision for school property, does say "in violation of conspicuously posted rules or regulations."

Montesa and several other parents have been asking the Board of Education since April to explain the current trespass policy and, if it's adequate, whether it's being enforced. The board's answer was to ask Montesa to prove that trespassing was taking place, to identify the trespassers and track the frequency of its occurrence, she said.

She put out the word to the PTAs and received logs from two schools. The one from the Elmwood school reported that between April 30 and May 10, 31 people either walked across or hung around school grounds between 9 a.m. and 2:35 p.m. One man stood at the treeline for 15 minutes until a custodian walked up to him and he left. On May 10, one man spent time flying a kite about 1 p.m. on school grounds while three other men walked through the property.

The logs were handed over to central administration. The school board told the PTA it was working on the regulations, and may have something to show them in the fall.

"They're wishing we would go away," Montesa said.

Montesa said that people crossing school property during school hours pose an insurance risk. An errant ball, a running student not paying attention or a game of tag could injure anybody walking across the property and the district would be at fault.

Paul Weinstein, a representative of New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal, which insures East Ramapo schools, said the company doesn't require schools to post "No Trespassing" signs but strongly recommends it.

Other districts have handled trespassing differently. Brewster schools in 2006 charged eight men playing soccer on school grounds during school hours with criminal trespass in a case that ended up with one of them being deported. At Nanuet, Highview School for several years used the public Castle playground across the street during recess and posted signs telling the public that area was off-limits during school hours.

"I don't know what the actual policy is, but just off the top of my head to me it would just be a safety reason," said Rudy Villanyi, Nanuet's head of buildings and grounds. "It was just so you didn't have strangers coming in while the kids were out there."

It's long been tradition that people cut across East Ramapo school grounds, and no one has problems with the public using the pathways or playgrounds when school is not in session, Montesa and several staff members said. They worry about school hours.

"It would distract our kids to watch people walk back and forth," recalled Heather Goldberg, who was a special-education teaching assistant at the Hillcrest school before it was closed and rented out to a yeshiva.

"There would be people playing on our playground during our play times," said Goldberg, who now teaches in the Bronx. "It would be a good five minutes or so until our playgrounds were free of strangers. Nobody offered to leave (they had to be told). I don't know if the people were always aware (of safety concerns)."

Lately, Montesa said, the problem has been getting worse, from what she has been told by administrators, parents and other PTA presidents. Though the board categorically denies it, Montesa said several people when confronted on school grounds said they had permission from the school board to be there.